There's a zombie on your lawn
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I’ve just finished the absolutely excellent Batman: Arkham Asylum and would recommend it to anyone and everyone! If you don’t have it already, go out and buy it. Right now! 
It’s not often that Microsoft gives you the opportunity to earn cold, hard gamerscore for nowt. But if you don’t mind installing the Games for Windows LIVE client from http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-us/live/Pages/livejoin.aspx you can also get Tinker for absolutely nothing which includes 200 points worth of achievements.
Tinker is an isometric 3D style puzzle game which you’ve probably seem a hundred clones of previously but it’s polished, good fun and worth a download.
By the way, the system requirements for Tinker imply that it needs a 3GHz processor and a Geforce 6600/ATI 1300 graphics card… My own system is substantially below that specification and it runs fine!
Because it certainly seems like it. For example:
Not bad eh!
Well, the Modern Warfare 2 release didn’t go too badly eh! Launch party in London’s Leicester Square and it sold 1.23 million copies on the first day in the UK alone (according to gamesindustry.biz).
I wasn’t planning on buying it but I couldn’t walk past it in Morrisons when it was priced at only £25.99. (So much for the £55 everyone was expecting to pay!)
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get it online at all tonight. I’m hoping this is just a temporary glitch and Infinity Ward haven’t underestimated the amount of people trying to get online. (Surely they’d have to be completely stupid if that were the case though?)
Well, there have been far too many games to play this month!
A decent chunk of it has been spent on Uncharted 2. Amazing game and, you’ve heard it all before, but it definately sets a few new benchmarks on the PS3.
If that wasn’t enough I grabbed the Grand Theft Auto: Episodes from Liberty City disc (had a few GAME points stored up so managed to get it for only £20!).
I was pleasantly surprised by “The Ballad of Gay Tony” as it pushes GTA back into the sort of complete madness last seen in San Andreas… Base jumping, drug wars, stealing trains carriages with helicopters and even a gold SMG! If you thought GTA IV took itself too seriously this might be worth another look for you.
It’s Modern Warfare 2 day tomorrow but I think I’m going to hold off on that one as I’ve still only barely started COD4! Too many games, not enough hours in a day
There is a bit of an outcry going on at the moment about new Silverlight-driven advertisements coming to XBox Live and the subsequent replies by Major Nelson on the subject.
But if Microsoft starts showing adverts like this people might have a point!
Warning: That link does contain vomiting so if you are easily offended – Don’t click it!
(It’s not particulary likely that Microsoft will load puke-related ads on the XBox dashboard but it was a humourous way to report two stories in one post!)
It’s been well over a week since I last posted anything and I’m ashamed to say it’s because one of those evil supermarket corporations took advantage of my complete lack of any willpower and sold me an XBox 360… At a very reasonable price.
So now I can put my 2p worth into the XBox 360 vs. Playstation 3 debate!
I’ve only had a week with the 360 so far but the boring conclusion is that they are just about evenly matched. Both consoles and the services that come with them have their strengths and weaknesses.
Here are a few quick observations:
Hardware: Both machines are big and heavy. The PS3 being the larger of the two. The fans in the XBox are loud and it gets even louder when a DVD is spinning up in the drive. The PS3 is virtually silent with hardly any drive noise.
XBox Live vs. Playstation Network: A Gold subscription on XL will set you back £40 a year but PSN is completely free online. XL does have many more games on offer though and a movie store which is available in Europe. On the other hand Sony now has an impressive free music video service on the PS3 called Vidzone.
XBox Live Arcade vs. PSN Games: I really like the idea that every game on XLA has a demo version. Demos of PSN games may not always be available and are often only downloadable weeks after the full version of the title has been released.
New Xbox Experience vs. XrossMediaBar: This is just my personal opinion but I prefer the PS3’s XMB. It just looks a bit more classy and seems quicker to navigate with. To be fair though, there is much more content on XL so it’s reasonable that some of it can seem hidden away. NXE has gone a bit more family-friendly-Wii-avatar style which is okay if you like it.
XBox Achievements vs. Playstation 3 Trophies: These are basically one and the same. The big advantage of achievements is that every single 360 game supports them, where as trophies are only supported by the most recent PS3 titles. I do think the trophy system is a little more evolved in that you have a total number of trophies and an RPG-style trophy level. This means you can quickly deduce that those people with a high trophy level and relatively low number of trophies have put in the effort to chase the gold and platinum awards. In contrast, people with high trophy counts but low levels are mainly collecting the easier bronze awards. Maybe I analyse this too much though!
Games: What fanboys love to argue over constantly! Well, personally I can’t see much difference in games between either platform. If you think back a year ago the PS3 was struggling with a lack of titles but now it has a very respectable library, even if it is not as large as the 360’s back catalogue.
I could go on forever but the main point of this post to to say: Stop arguing about which is the best machine. They are both great! The fact that both machines (and the Wii) exist and are successful is the best situation for gamers. It means Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo need to continue to work hard and innovate to stay at the top of their respective games (pardon the pun!).
It’s worth noting that when the world first embraced mobile phone technology on a large scale the development of mobile phones went crazy. Big phones went small. Monochrome LCD screens were replaced by full colour displays. Full internet access is now available and almost every phone is now an mp3 player.
Now games are finally being accepted by the rest of the world. What is going to happen to games technology over the next few years?